No fires, but people are willing to let the homes fall into disrepair. We saw this in cities in the 1970s in some urban ghettos. Structures of all kinds were allowed to fall into a state of extreme disrepair.
The thing we have to do -—in my opinion — is treat each homeowner as a small third world country that has taken on too much debt — work out new terms and keep the loans on the books. Forcing money downward through the banking system may not work...we need to do the labor intensive thing, forcing money upward.
This is just my opinion and I could be completely wrong.
I’m all for the loans being re-financed but at the original amount. It will be patently unfair to those who have struggled but made their payments.
That has to be done at each bank’s discretion. Forced policy like that has been called “cramdown” and the banks are resisting (naturally) a policy that requires them to devalue their already-scarce assets.